Promoted from Preserve Marriage Washington:

You may have heard that Governor Christine Gregoire has just signed legislation purporting to make Washington state the seventh state to redefine marriage to accommodate the demands of gay marriage activists.

What you may not have heard is that this is by no means a settled issue.

NOM is joining with the Family Policy Institute of Washington, Stand for Marriage Washington, Concerned Women for America and hundreds of other groups, pastors and individuals to take this issue directly to the people in November via a referendum.

We need your help!

The referendum was filed today in Olympia just hours after Governor Gregoire signed the legislation. This begins the legal process that will result in referendum petitions being circulated in a few weeks, once we complete the required preparatory steps. We need to collect 120,577 voter signatures by June 6th to prevent the law from taking effect and qualify the referendum to the ballot.

But we're not waiting for petitions to be available to start.

By the time we have received official approval to being circulating the petitions, we want to have 50,000 people identified and ready to circulate the petitions. Will you help us?

With our allies, we have launched a campaign coalition called Preserve Marriage Washington. We ask you to go to www.preservemarriagewashington.com to sign up as a supporter. You'll be part of our campaign and will learn what we are doing to preserve marriage as God intended it.

If you live in the state, please also check the box to request petitions once they are available.

And for those of you receiving this email all across the nation, please, if you know anyone who lives in Washington state, let them know about our efforts and ask them to sign up to request petitions as well.

Even if you can't circulate petitions, you can still do a lot to preserve marriage in Washington. You can join with thousands of others to pray for the success of the referendum effort. This is a spiritual battle as much as it is a political battle.

You can also make a contribution to the effort to help us get going. This will be an expensive undertaking that comes at a time when NOM is already stretched to the max. Please prayerfully consider a gift of funds to the campaign by clicking here.

It seems like marriage is under attack all over the country, and NOM is doing everything we can every day to preserve marriage. We must be successful in getting this referendum on the ballot in Washington state. Please help us.